Danger to Myself and Others

Clumsy and absent-minded.  This is me on a good day.  Otherwise, I am the proverbial bull in a china shop.  Destroying things in my wake even when I try to be careful.  Forgetting things that should not be forgotten.

I have been abducted by the mystery of hormones, the haze of nature that kidnaps normally functional women and throws them into a frenzy of biochemical laws beyond our control.  This happens at puberty, during breeding, again in menopause.  At some point, we all become victims. 

And while our culture often dismisses women in these times as hysterical, overly emotional, irrational, disastrous, I do not think we should be so quick to disregard the shift that happens.  It is both serious and comical.  There is meaning in this transition.

It is Mother Nature spiraling us inward, demanding that we be in conversation with our internal landscape.  Inviting us - no telling us - that the world is less important than our own knowing.  That the way through this transformation needs our active participation.  But 'active participation' looks more like absent participation to the rest of the world.  Maybe even to ourselves since we can't recognize the normally functional woman inside this flighty, indecisive, clumsy, forgetful and generally spacey person who is now in charge of our lives.

This space is psychadellic.  I am clumsy and haphazard, but I am happy.  I am mellow.  Being on the inside - with my thoughts and dreams - is a pleasant landscape.  It isn't always functional, but it feels good.  So when I've made really horrible coffee for the fourth morning in a row, I pour in extra cream and I laugh about it.

In the last week, I have managed to break more kitchenware than I'd like to recount.  I have spilled milk, dumped pints of blueberries, started a dish towel on fire, driven my car against a barbed wire fence.  I have dropped butcher knives too close to my toes for comfort.  I forget why I have driven across town or why I walked out into the garage.  I mailed packages to friends in Washington and Illinois, but my friend in Bellingham got the package for my friend in Chicago and vice versa.  I cry because the world makes me sad and I cry because the world is beautiful.

To an outsider, I am a wreck.  On the inside, I am peacefully coccooned from doing to much.  From thinking too much.  From caring too much about anything unimportant.  The refrigerator is empty more than it is full.  Days slip by and I wonder where they went.  I can spend two hours chopping vegetables.  Happy and content to chop, chop, chop.

Most days I think it would be wise for me to retire my kitchen utensils and park the car in the garage for the next three months.  It would be safer for me and for all things breakable within 4 feet of me.

I remember when my friend Donna was either pregnant or newly postpartum with her son, Ensor.  I can't remember which but it doesn't matter much for this story because either way, whether growing a baby or turning into a milking machine, she was playing Patty Hearst to the Hormone Liberation Army.  She called me one day, horrified and embarrassed and idignant all at once because she ran a red light.  I remember listening with total compassion.  And, in retrospect, no real clue what she was talking about. 

Let me say this, for the record, whether the maidens who surround us understand in the moment what we are talking about when we talk about running red lights, dropping entire rolls of toilet paper into the toilet or brushing our teeth with shampoo, they need to hear it.  Donna's story came to live with me three years later when I saw a flash-flash-flashing light in my rearvie w mirror...my first ever moving violation after 17 years of driving.  I remembered Donna running a red light and I wanted to say to that cop "Dude, what's your problem???? I am a hormonal, postpartum female!"  I was also horrifed, idignant and embarrassed all at once. 

So here I am, the second time around.  An experienced mother.  Still clumsy, still victim to my own messes, still wondering if I should buy Satchel a helmet and knee pads so he can actually be near me in the kitchen.  But this time, I am enjoying it for what it is worth.  It is a free pass to be messy, to be in the moment, to dance when I want to, to laugh with a broom in hand as I sweep up more shards of glass.

Comments

[angela]

Well, let me just tell you that if you think you are forgetful now, just wait until menopause. I have locked my keys (both sets) in my car twice in a month and swear that women my age don't have children (46) cause we would forget where we put them (did I also mention that I also left my purse on top of my car when I was leaving work?) Seriously, you are going to be just as good as a mother to Lova as you are to Satchel...you are beyond great!

[Jennifer Boire]

Lovely truthful humorous writing Urbanearthmama, great pics of your blossoming belly.
I wrote a book instead of a blog when I was pregnant, trying to keep track, and am so glad I did, cause the memories would have been less vivid. I am going to post a poem for you on my blog musemother, because having a girl (after a beautiful blond boy like your son), was a whole different story.
I'm just past the hormonal fogginess of menopause, so can relate completely. There's a reason they sent the males out to hunt mastodons and kept the preggers around the fire,
best
jenn

[Leigh]

Hilarious and true. I constantly had chocolate stains on my belly, the evidence of which I then couldn't hide well from my midwife. :)
xoxo

[bella]

I love that you are surrendering to this time, this inward state, this "clumsy" on the outside. When we don't resist it, it is as you said so eloquently, its own kind of bliss.
You are magic.

[Rebekah]

Oh my gosh, you just described me to a "T" when I'm pregnant. Especially with Ronan, it was like my body was so busy growing and protecting him, there wasn't a whole lot left for me and my brain. I was in a haze. I've said that I basically "lost" October through April of last year ... the last few months of my pregnancy and the first few months of newbornhood. I can't say that it was all enjoyable, but those many hours I spent downstairs in my bedroom rocking myself in my beloved rocking chair, trying to keep my rising BP down were precious. I guess I would put it this way ... I wouldn't want to be in that state forever, but that "haze" is what slowed me down, made me take the time to breathe and listen to my Hypobirthing tapes and reeeaaally connect with the baby. "Mother Nature spiraling us inward" ... EXACTLY.

You also reminded me of the story my BF's mom told me when she was pg with her 4th baby. She was cutting a bagel in half for herself, and put her finger in the hole to hold it steady, thinking "Wow! This is great! I wonder why I've never thought of doing this before". And then of course she cut her finger.

[Donna]

Just last week, Ens shined in a road safety course he and his 2nd grade classmates took part in (they start driver's ed early here!). The boy was the only child who knew green doesn't mean "go," it means "look for whether any [hormonal, or otherwise] distracted driver is barreling through a red light...then go..." "Officer Anna" made such an example of his manefest brilliance. If she only knew the experience that led his mamma to teach him such things. Surely, we do deserve so much leeway when those lovely hormone juices are coursing through us. And there ought to be a patron saint to us at such times--Patty Hearst sounds like a great candidate.

I'm signing off, relieved to be moving-violation-free since that day, yet still indignant that my beau still won't accept that that one red light was COMPLETELY JUSTIFIABLE. (for the record, it was post partum hormones with a loudly screaming babe in need of a boob.)
May Saint Patty watch over and protect you during this most blessed of times!

[mb]

Sister, we are in this state of danger to ourselves and society together. i think at this point i am almost at the climax of this stage right now. i can't even hear people asking me questions who are right next to me. b hides the car keys and knives from me. i walk thought the house knocking my daughters down because i can't even see where i am going.

love you
m

[KIRSTIE]

p.s typo -- meant to say "relatable."

[KIRSTIE]

I found your blog just clicking around (can't get motivated to work) and I just want to say it is beautiful and relatalbe. You have a great gift for writing. (I too am a runner and ran during pregnanacies -- rock on!).

[Jo]

This is great. I am so this way as well. But can I still say I am post-partum, while my daughter is nine months old? Cause none of my haphazardness has exited the premises. I am pretty much a walking disaster in need of a 'danger' sign, LOL. Great post. Many of us can relate, surely. At the very least, we smile.

[Shannon @ some fine taters]

This made me smile: "she was playing Patty Hearst to the Hormone Liberation Army."